free, graceful, poetic transcripts of scenery with every phase of which he was thoroughly familiar. But he was occasionally hardly less successful in painting the mountains of Scotland and Wales, and the rivers and moors of Yorkshire. Copley Fielding possessed much originality, some genius, and marvellous manual dexterity, and coming at a time when the art of water-colour painting was emerging from its state of pupilage, he did much to secure its social standing, and had some share in directing its course. But his influence can hardly be regarded as beneficial, and is not likely to be permanent. He died at Worthing in Sussex on the 3d of March, 1855.—J. T—e.
FIELDING, Henry, a great English novelist, as well as a dramatic and political writer, was born at Sharpham Park in Somersetshire, on the 22d of April, 1707. The family from which he sprung was an ancient and a distinguished one. They trace their origin from the counts of Hapsburg, one of whom, Geoffry, father of Rodolph, emperor of Germany, came to England and served under Henry III., with whom he became a favourite, obtained large possessions from him, and assuming the name of Fielding, became the founder of the family, which took a prominent part in the wars of the Roses, and attained to the earldom of Denbeigh in 1620. Edmund Fielding was a distinguished soldier in the wars of Marlborough, and became a lieutenant-general. He had six children, of whom Henry was one. After a home-education under the family chaplain, the boy was sent to Eton, where he made creditable progress in the classics, and, what was of no small value, intimate friendships, some of which continued during his life. Of these, George, the third Lord Lyttleton is especially to be noticed, while he numbered amongst his acquaintances the first Pitt, Henry Fox, and Sir C. H. Williams. He left Eton with the reputation of a good scholar, and a lad of lively and brilliant parts; and being designed for the legal profession, he went to the university of Leyden to study the civil law. Here he studied diligently, finding time also to court the muses and compose a comedy, "Don Quixote in England," entertaining a life-long admiration of the cognate genius of Cervantes. Want of funds—which his father was through life better at promising than supplying—forced the young man to return to London, and in his twentieth year to turn author for his daily bread. His first act was to fall in love with his fair cousin, Sarah Andrews. Her friends forbade the union: Fielding attempted to elope with her: the girl was removed and married to a respectable squire, but Fielding took his disappointment much to heart. The portrait of Sophia Western is said to have been drawn from the charms that were never effaced from the lover's memory. And now he is a man of the town, in the best society, and an author—for he was not long in producing a comedy—"Love in Several Masques"—which was put upon the stage in 1728. It was not altogether unsuccessful; which, considering that it followed after the masterpieces of Congreve, was some encouragement. In 1780 he again appeared before the public as the author of "The Temple Beau" a lively and clever piece, though carelessly written. "The Author's Farce," a satirical piece; "The Coffeehouse Politician;" and the clever burlesque of "Tom Thumb," succeeded in rapid succession, and gave him a reputation as a dramatic author and a man of wit, while they encouraged his natural proclivity to dissipation and prodigality. Accordingly he continued to write with wonderful celerity, considering the life he led; producing dramatic pieces, thrown off with careless haste, but yet bearing unmistakable marks of genius: thus supplying his necessities, and as rapidly becoming needy again. Between 1781 and 1784 he put on the stage—"The Modern Husband;" "The Mock Doctor;" and "The Miser;" and, following the example of other writers, he opened a booth at Bartholomew fair for the representation of his dramas. Then followed the "Intriguing Chamber Maid," and "Don Quixote in England," one of the happiest reproductions of the hero of Cervantes and his squire. We have now brought Fielding to his thirty-seventh year, when he formed a love-match in 1735 with a beauty of the town of Salisbury, Charlotte Cradock. The London roue now resolved to quit the town and its vices, and so he settled on his little patrimony at East Stour; and with the most amiable of women, and a portion which she brought him of £1500, he turned squire. But the old leaven of extravagance worked still within him. He set up a fine establishment; kept open house, a pack of hounds, and a stud of horses, and very soon dissipated his wife's fortune and his own estate and awoke from his dream of folly one day to find himself penniless and plunged into debt, with a wife and child dependent on him for existence. So ended his squire-life; and he betook himself again to London in the spring of 1736, with a heart as full of repentance and good resolutions as his purse was empty of guineas. The ready wit of Fielding soon discovered an opening, and taking advantage of the political excitement of the times, he hired a company which he dubbed "The great Mogul's company of comedians," and wrote and put on his own stage some of the happiest dramatic satires of the age. "Pasquin," the first of these, embraced the mock rehearsal of two plays, and was a bold assault upon the corruptions at elections, and the abuses then prevalent in the learned professions, mixed with a large amount of personal raillery against Cibber and other public men, which was extremely telling. The piece had great success, was played for fifty nights, and filled the empty purse of Fielding. The next year he tried another piece of the same character, "The Historical Register," and there is no doubt that these performances led to the enactment known as the licensing act, in consequence of which the "Great Mogul company" was broken up, and Fielding abandoned dramatic literature, and put his name on the books of the Middle Temple as a student, in Michaelmas term, 1737. To this new pursuit he applied his mind with great diligence, eking out his scanty means by writing for periodicals, of one of which—the Champion—he became part proprietor in 1739, and contributed a series of highly popular essays to the work. In this manner he continued to keep himself above want till in June, 1740, he was called to the bar, and went the western circuit, turning into a laborious and well-informed lawyer and an assiduous attendant at court. But the brand of literature was upon him, as the mark upon Cain, and every attorney in the hall turned from the wit and the writer of dramas and essays. How could such an one master the sublime philosophy of a special plea or the mysteries of a demurrer! And so he had to choose between living down these narrow professional prejudices, and perhaps starving in the attempt, or continuing to sustain his family by writing: he chose, or rather was forced to adopt, the latter course, and so ruined all his chances of legal success. Two or three minor productions appeared in the first and second years of his legal standing; while he was occupied with the first of those novels which was destined to place him at the summit of literary fame. It was in 1742 that "The Adventures of Joseph Andrews" was published. The design of the novel was to expose and ridicule the mawkish sentimentality of Richardson's Pamela, and in this Fielding was eminently successful. It is full of a vigorous, healthy, genial feeling, and the character of Parson Adams is one of the happiest and most delightful, as well as the most natural in its virtues and its failings, that has ever been drawn—a thorough Quixote in cassock. This work was a decided success, despite the wrath of Richardson, who did his best to undervalue the book and to slander the writer. It ran through three editions in little more than a year, besides a pirated impression, which Fielding suppressed by an injunction. In addition, Fielding continued to write pamphlets, and again employed his pen for the stage. He had before this become acquainted with Garrick, who had performed in "The Mock Doctor," and at the desire of the latter. Fielding completed a comedy, "The Wedding Day," which he had partly written long previously. The dangerous illness of his wife, and other circumstances, prevented his bestowing due care on the composition, and despite of the talents of Garrick and other great actors, it was a failure. In 1743 Fielding published three volumes of miscellanies, poems and prose, containing some papers of high merit, and some, it must be confessed, of very inferior. Amongst the former were the "Essays on the characters of man," and "A journey from this world to the next," written in his happiest vein of satirical criticism; and that bitter, revolting, and almost savage portraiture of human nature, in one of its phases of degradation, "The history of Jonathan Wilde." And now the heaviest affliction of his life fell upon him. Worn out by care and sorrow, and all the vicissitudes of the life to which his faults and his follies subjected her, the wife, whom, despite of his temporary defections, he loved in his heart of hearts, sank under her struggles, and died in his arms in 1743. The blow prostrated him for a time, and left his soul dark, lonely, and full of remorse. The recollection of her virtues and fidelity never left his memory, and he has given the world an imperishable portrai-
